May 21, 2014

There’s an additional ambiguity: What does it mean to leave the law “unchanged” when the Supreme Court has already struck down parts of it and the administration has declined to follow or enforce others? That’s not a salient question for immediate electoral purposes; in terms of voting intention, “left unchanged” can be taken as a statement of support for the Democrats. But even if the statutory language proves resistant to any effort at modification, there will be a new administration after 2016. That could mean more discretionary (or extralegal) changes and perhaps the end of ObamaCare as we know it.

“ObamaCare as we know it” is also an ambiguous turn of phrase, to say the least, for what do we know of ObamaCare? A few provisions are relatively straightforward, such as the expansion of Medicaid eligibility (in those states that have gone along with it) and the mandate that family insurance plans cover 23-, 24- and 25-year-old children of policyholders.

But the whole of ObamaCare is an insanely complicated scheme that even experts are still struggling to understand. “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it–away from the fog of the controversy,” then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said in March 2010. We’ll be finding out for many years to come, and there’s no reason to think that “fog” will ever lift.

To the Dems, that’s not a bug, but a feature. If people had figured out what was being done to them all at once, the politicians would have been hanging from lampposts.

A law, by definition, is a set of rules that the government enforces and for which government can impose punitive measures against those who break those rules.

A key element of a good law is that the citizenry knows what the rules are so they can at least make a good faith effort to abide by said rules.

When key chunks of a law are set aside, when penalties are not enforced, when the branch of government charged with enforcing that law picks and chooses which portion to enforce and which to ignore, and when that same branch of government completely re-interprets or rewrites provisions of that law as they go along.....at what point is it even considered a law anymore?

In other words, at what point is the law so vague and so ambiguous that it becomes impossible to enforce by anything other than executive edict?

And if something is being enforced just by edict, then it is no longer something written and concrete that can be pointed to in the statutes as a law anymore....so is it enforceable at that point?

In other words, if the clear letter of the law states that you MUST have a government approved health insurance plan in place by November 1, 2014....but then the executive branch by executive order shifts that date to January 1, 2015 - can the government continue to impose penalties since they themselves are not actually enforcing the original letter of the law but rather attempting to enforce the revised deadline they themselves set?

No lawmaker, nor judge, nor administrator, nor bureaucrat shall ever hang from a lamp post. The people do not have the required prerequisites of civic character to ever make such a decision. It shall take a gun and a surprise, if that's even possible in today's spying network.

The supporters keep touting the affordability due the the subsidies offered. What they fail to mention is that even if you're getting a subsidy, your deductible is still going to be $4 - $12K for individuals & families, if you require care. So if you're too poor to make monthly payments without help, how are you going to pay thousands in deductibles & co-pays. The insurers & Govt will get the needed cash from higher rates charged to employers, employees and taxpayers. The math on this program cannot and will not ever work.

Obamacare is the ultimate make work scheme for politicians. It provides a permanent campaign promise to make things better and to keep those evil conservatives from taking away their rights. It provides the illusion of progress.

"Intentionally lying about income to boost your Obamacare tax credits could get you into hot water--$25,000 to $250,000 of hot water."

Wow, this is huge. The smaller amount is for unintentional lying. Does the government have the option not to collect these fines? The article says these are upper limits, but it does set the scale to imply that $1 fines would be ridiculously low for such offenses.

A law, by definition, is a set of rules that the government enforces and for which government can impose punitive measures against those who break those rules.

A key element of a good law is that the citizenry knows what the rules are so they can at least make a good faith effort to abide by said rules.

When key chunks of a law are set aside, when penalties are not enforced, when the branch of government charged with enforcing that law picks and chooses which portion to enforce and which to ignore, and when that same branch of government completely re-interprets or rewrites provisions of that law as they go along.....at what point is it even considered a law anymore?

In other words, at what point is the law so vague and so ambiguous that it becomes impossible to enforce by anything other than executive edict?

And if something is being enforced just by edict, then it is no longer something written and concrete that can be pointed to in the statutes as a law anymore....so is it enforceable at that point?

In other words, if the clear letter of the law states that you MUST have a government approved health insurance plan in place by November 1, 2014....but then the executive branch by executive order shifts that date to January 1, 2015 - can the government continue to impose penalties since they themselves are not actually enforcing the original letter of the law but rather attempting to enforce the revised deadline they themselves set?

Would something like this fly as a legal defense? Example: if a company is lapse in defending its trademarks, it loses the right to sue for trademark infringement. If the gov't does not enforce a law on the books, does the law lose its enforceability?

This is absolutely true. In Ohio there was an old law on the books since the 1930's that required Ohioans to pay Ohio sales tax on anything they bought in other states. It was passed to discourage people from doing business with non-Ohioians. It wasn't enforced for decades until Governor Kasich decided to enforce it a couple of years ago. Here's the real kicker- he only enforces it for businesses, not the general population. Guess he didn't want to alienate all the Amazon users who vote.

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